Self-Defense Forces troops are not the only ones using Japanese cash to provide humanitarian aid in southern Iraq.
On April 20, the Foreign Ministry announced it would provide $353,000, or about 39 million yen, to a Paris-based nongovernmental aid group, the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development. ACTED has been engaged in a water-purification project in Al-Muthanna Province since the United States declared last May that major military operations in Iraq were over.
The ministry explained that the financial aid is part of a larger Japanese effort to help rebuild the war-ravaged country. But the decision has raised a fundamental question among the public and critics over whether the military, in terms of cost-effectiveness, is suited to humanitarian work.